[kj] ot - a dream of spin and distortion

[melinda grant]

hear..bloody,hear...well done fluwgot-....peace and justice for 
all,irrespective of there race=skin colour-sexual orinantation or mystical 
leaning--i believe that should be the right of all/it is not,but it should 
be,in this day,n age====1 execption,that plonker/brain dead,prince 
harry..you a;; know what he did,so i dont need to repeat it==i will say,that 
my sence of humour is vast,but there was nothing funny about that  costume 
that he wore......that symbol stood for the de-humanisation of a whole 
race/placed in the most appauling of conditions.you all should know what 
happened in the holocaust...not funny ect-- enough said...........mel

>From: fluwdot at earthlink.net
>Reply-To: "A list about all things Killing Joke (the band!)" 
><gathering at misera.net>
>To: gathering at misera.net
>Subject: [kj] ot - a dream of spin and distortion
>Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 16:55:58 -0500
>
>from blackcommentator.com
>
>Every year, millions of Americans pay tribute to the memory of Dr.
>Martin Luther King. We often forget, however, that King was the
>object of derision when he was alive. At key moments in his quest for
>civil rights and world peace, the corporate media treated King with
>hostility. Dr. King's march for open housing in Chicago, when the
>civil rights movement entered the North, caused a negative, you've-
>gone-too-far reaction in the Northern press. And Dr. King's stand on
>peace and international law, especially his support for the self-
>determination of third world peoples, caused an outcry and backlash
>in the predominantly white press.
>
>In his prophetic anti-war speech at Riverside Church in 1967
>(recorded and filmed for posterity but rarely quoted in today's
>press) King emphasized four points: 1) that American militarism would
>destroy the war on poverty, 2) that American jingoism breeds
>violence, despair, and contempt for law within the United States, 3)
>the use of people of color to fight against people of color abroad is
>a "cruel manipulation of the poor," 4) human rights should be
>measured by one yardstick everywhere.
>
>The Washington Post denounced King's anti-war position, and said King
>was "irresponsible." In an editorial entitled "Dr. King's error," The
>New York Times chastised King for going beyond the allotted domain of
>black leaders -- civil rights.TIME called King's anti-war stand
>"demogogic slander...a script for Radio Hanoi." The media responses
>to Dr. King's calls for peace were so venomous that King's two recent
>biographers – Stephen Oates and David Garrow – devoted whole chapters
>to the media blitz against King's internationalism.
>
>Dr. King may be an icon within the media today, but there is still
>something upsetting about the way his birthday is observed. Four
>words – "I have a dream" – are often parroted out of context every
>January 15th.
>
>King, however, was not a dreamer – at least not the teary-eyed,
>mystic projected in the media. True, he was a visionary, but he
>specialized in applied ethics. He even called himself "a drum major
>for justice," and his mission, as he described it, was, "to disturb
>the comfortable and comfort the disturbed." In fact, the oft-quoted
>"I have a dream" speech was not about far-off visions. In his speech
>in Washington, D.C., August 28, 1963, Dr. King confronted the
>poverty, injustice, and "nightmare conditions" of American cities. In
>its totality, the "I have a dream" speech was about the right of
>oppressed and poor Americans to cash their promissory note in our
>time. It was a call to action.
>
>
>
>In 1986, Jesse Jackson wrote an essay on how Americans can protect
>the legacy of Dr. King. Jackson's essay on the trivialization,
>distortion, the emasculation of King's memory, is one of the
>clearest, most relevant appreciations in print of Dr. King's work.
>Jackson wrote: "We must resist the media's weak and anemic memory of
>a great man. To think of Dr. King only as a dreamer is to do
>injustice to his memory and to the dream itself. Why is it that so
>many politicians today want to emphasize that King was a dreamer? Is
>it because they want us to believe that his dreams have become
>reality, and that therefore, we should celebrate rather than continue
>to fight? There is a struggle today to preserve the substance and the
>integrity of Dr. King's legacy."
>
>Today, the media often ignores the range and breadth of King's
>teachings. His speeches – on economlc justice, on our potential to
>end poverty, on the power of organized mass action, his criticism of
>the hostile media, his opposition to U.S. imperialism (a word he
>dared to use) – are rarely quoted, much less discussed with
>understanding. In fact, successors to Dr. King who raise the same
>concerns today are again treated with sneers, and their "ulterior
>motives" are questioned. A genuine appreciation of Dr. King requires
>respect for the totality of his work and an ongoing commitment to
>struggle for peace and justice today.
>
>
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